This is a story about an assassin
by dysprositos
Summary: Sequel to 'This is a story about a cat.' It's been almost six months since Manhattan, and Clint's been working on putting all of that behind him, with lots of help from the rest of the team—and his new feline friend, of course. Everything was going great, until something went wrong on a mission. Now, Clint's whole future is up in the air. Mostly just shameless fluff, some h/c.
1. into the dark

Warnings: gratuitous use of language that would (and frequently does) make my mother frown.

My beta, irite, is the absolute best, seriously.

My semester ends tomorrow (after four hours of exams, ew) so to celebrate, here's the first chapter of the ongoing adventures of Clint and Cat.

I do not own The Avengers.

* * *

Clint's cat very successfully weaseled his way into life in the Tower. Despite the new roles he found for himself, though, his ultimate duty remained taking care of Clint. He ended up getting a five-month vacation from that, though, and like any good feline overlord, he took the time to work on some other goals.

First, he became the team mascot.

The first time he had to go on a SHIELD mission, Clint left his cat with Bruce, since he and Natasha were going to be gone for at least a week and probably longer.

When Clint came back, his cat was wearing an unusually high-tech looking collar, Bruce looked sheepish, and Tony was chattering excitedly about radio frequency-controlled cat doors with cat-activated passwords.

"Regular cat flaps," the billionaire stated gravely, "would be a security risk."

Clint hadn't put that much thought into it—he hadn't even considered installing cat doors, honestly. So all he asked was, "Passwords?" It was too damn early for this shit—dealing with Tony should require additional coffee and a Tony-to-English dictionary.

But, Tony was more than happy to talk about his invention. "Oh, yeah. The signal from the collar opens the flap, but what if someone just stole the collar? So I designed special floor tiles that recognize your cat's paw prints. Put them in front of the door, and the door only opens for him. I'm having the flaps and the tiles installed in all designated cat-friendly areas."

"...Cat friendly areas?"

This time, Bruce explained. "Well, there's some places we don't want your cat to go unsupervised, right? The labs, for example. And we don't want him to be able to leave the building, so we're limiting his security clearance to the residential areas. Of course, he can go anywhere you want to bring him, but he can only go certain places on his own..."

Bruce trailed off, and Clint figured that might have something to do with the half-amused half-overwhelmed look he could feel on his face. So he said, "Um, wow. You guys put a lot of thought into this, didn't you?"

"Nah, not really. We're geniuses," Tony replied brightly. "All in a day's work."

"We just thought it would be nice if, um, your cat could move around on his own. Get out and explore, you know?" Bruce added awkwardly. He gave the animal, who was weaving around Clint's legs, a fond look.

And, well, Clint wasn't possessive, and he wasn't an asshole, and he knew how much the others (except maybe Tony, and even he was coming around) liked having the cat around, so he shrugged. "Yeah, that's a good idea. I'm sure he'll like that, won't you, you annoying little shit?"

The cat leisurely stretched its front legs up onto Clint's and picked at his knees with its claws.

"Ow! Fucker. Fine, be that way." Clint looked back up at the scientists lingering in his kitchen. "Thanks for watching him, Banner. I appreciate it."

Bruce shrugged. "It's really not a problem. He's very low-maintenance, aside from demanding food...constantly." He smiled at the cat, which still clung to Clint's leg with one paw.

"Yeah, well, he's a fat ass in a tiny cat's body." Haughty, like he'd understood what Clint had said, the cat pulled back and stalked from the room, tail held high.

And still the scientists lingered, casting what Clint assumed were very meaningful looks at each other.

That was weird. Never one to beat around the bush, Clint asked, "Do you guys...need something?"

Tony was equally disinclined towards subtlety. Or politeness, for that matter. "Well, yeah. How'd the mission go? 'Cause if it was a giant fucking disaster and you're gonna flip your shit again, we'd all like some heads up."

He was, of course, referring to the month Clint had spent after the battle of Manhattan blind drunk and trying very, very hard not to think about the shit that had gone down with Loki. Not his finest moment, no doubt, but also one that he was putting behind him. Albeit slowly. With lots of help from Nat and the rest of the team—something he'd been too afraid to ask for in the beginning, but now could not do without. And, well, maybe the cat had helped, too. He'd been a crucial factor in Clint finally—as Natasha put it—getting his head out of his ass. Between all of them, Clint was definitely on the right track.

"Tony!" Bruce hissed, reprimanding. Tony shrugged, unapologetic.

Clint just laughed, though, marveling that he had already made it to a place in his life where he _could _laugh about it. "No, it was fine. Really. Ask Nat, if you don't believe me."

Tony shook his head. "Just thought we'd check. Right, Bruce?"

Bruce massaged the bridge of his nose. "I had planned on being a little more polite about it, but yeah. You're okay?"

"Yeah. I am." And it was true.

"Then our work here is done!" Tony declared. "Come on, Bruce. Pepper wants you to look over some calculations, make sure I'm not going to blow anything up. She's so _paranoid_, I only did that...well, I have insurance so it's not like it's a big deal..." Tony dragged Bruce out the door, and the physicist had time to shoot Clint a long-suffering look before the archer shut the door behind them.

So _that _was how the cat gained access to all of the Avengers' living quarters, which was the first step in his plan to conquer the Tower.

It took the cat a couple of days to figure out how the cat flaps worked, and another couple of days to determine that they weren't dangerous before he started regularly slipping out of Clint's rooms. It was a couple of days after that when Clint noticed extra food and water dishes appearing in the communal kitchen, and cat toys littering the common rooms, and within two weeks someone was growing cat grass on all of the windowsills (Clint suspected Steve, but no amount of assassin death glares would make the supersoldier 'fess up).

At first, Clint kind of missed having the constant companionship, but he soon discovered that wasn't necessary. For one, the cat seemed to prefer lounging in the sunny common living area—spending most of his time there. Clint just adjusted his routine so he spent more time there, too—which resulted in many video game matches with Tony and Steve, a fair number of games of chess with Bruce, and a whole lot of group movies. As it turned out, this socialization thing wasn't too hard, now that he had motivation to quit holing himself up in his room.

Second, the cat always made his way back to Clint's rooms at night. Without fail, Clint would wake up in the morning and the cat would be there, perched on his bed, demanding breakfast. And on the increasingly-rare occasions when he found himself awakened by nightmares, the cat was there then, too. So really, he didn't see any less of his feline friend, and the others grew more and more fond of the animal, and as the months passed, they all settled into a routine.

Soon, the cat proved its worth as more than a companion animal. As it turned out, the cat was also quite talented at conflict resolution.

It was the beginning of November, and the cat was currently huddled on Clint's lap in the common room, cringing in reaction to the increasingly severe weather pounding the city.

"It's just thunder," Clint told the cat, who had sunk his claws deep into Clint's leg. "Really. Nothing bad's going to happen." The claws hurt, yes, but Clint couldn't find it in himself to mind, really (beyond the occasional grumble, at least). The poor thing was obviously terrified.

"And his descent into insanity continues," Natasha mused, entering the room. "How often _do _you talk to that cat when no one's around?"

"I'm being _comforting_," Clint snarked back. "Not something you'd know anything about."

Natasha smirked, then walked over to Clint and gently pried the cat off his lap. She scooped it up and held it to her chest, and even from a few feet away Clint could hear the cat's pleased purrs. "What the fuck, are you the fucking cat whisperer or something?"

"I guess I'm just _comforting_, Barton."

She was going to say something else, but Steve popped his head into the room. "Hey, guys, Tony says Thor just zapped into his workshop or something, and he wants us all down there."

"Is there a problem?" Natasha asked, immediately alert. She set the cat down, where it went immediately back to panicking, twisting in circles around her legs, trying to flatten itself out.

"No, but he wants to tell us what's happening with Loki. Apparently it's taken them this long to get everything sorted out..."

Clint could feel Natasha's eyes burning into him, and he forced his eyes up meet hers. Doing _anything _related to Loki ranked pretty high on his I'd-do-anything-to-avoid-this meter, but this was unavoidable. And a large part of him did want desperately to know what had happened to that bastard. "Let's do this." He stood.

Then cast a look down at his cat, who was looking up at him with the most pathetic expression Clint had ever seen. He heaved a sigh, then picked the cat up, settling him into his arms. At Natasha's incredulous look, he said, "What? Fucking cat's scared, I'm not just going to leave him here alone."

Natasha shrugged, and they headed to Tony's lab.

On the way down, Clint could not deny the comfort the small weight in his arms brought him.

* * *

When Clint, Steve, and Natasha got to Tony's lab, the billionaire was facing off with Thor and Bruce was making a valiant effort at keeping the two of them from exchanging more than words.

"What's up?" Steve asked, immediately taking charge.

Bruce sighed. "Tony said some...unflattering things about Loki, Thor got offended, Tony got offended that Thor was offended, and here we are."

"I just said he's a—"

"Maybe don't say it again?" Steve suggested, taking in Thor's glower.

Tony grumbled, but fell into sullen silence at Steve's glare. With a final huff, he walked over to his chair and threw himself into it dramatically and gestured around. "Okay, everyone, take a seat. Let's get this party started."

There was limited seating; Bruce settled into 'his' chair, and Natasha snagged the only other one available. With a shrug, Clint sat down on the floor, holding his cat in his lap. Steve and Thor looked at each other before leaning against Tony's desk.

"You're here about your brother, right?" Steve prompted, when everyone was as settled as they were going to get.

"Yes," Thor answered, still glaring daggers at Tony. "After we left this realm..."

He launched into what was a fairly long and detailed description of Loki's return to Asgard, his trial, and his subsequent imprisonment.

"And there he remains," Thor finished, after describing the impenetrable prison that had become his brother's home. "He will not be released for millennia, if he is at all."

Throughout Thor's story, Clint had paid rapt attention, hanging onto the demigod's words. Knowing that Loki was locked up on some other planet, likely to remain there until well after Clint had ceased living, was...relieving. And after what Loki had done, Clint couldn't deny he found some satisfaction in it. But not as much as he'd hoped he would. He asked, "So that's it? Loki goes to jail forever and that's just...it?"

It came out sounding far more accusatory than Clint had intended. But he _was_ feeling accusatory—something didn't seem fair about the whole arrangement, but he couldn't put his finger on _what_, and he couldn't even decide what he'd _hoped _had happened to Loki. Didn't know if his imagination extended that far.

Thor turned his full attention to Clint for the first time. "Yes. That is all." Angrily, he asked, "Would you have rather heard of his execution?"

"Well, I wouldn't be too broken up about it," Tony piped up. "But that might just be me. Actually, no, it's probably not."

Thor growled at Tony, "Mind how you speak."

"My house, my rules, Point Break. Look, it's just a little hard to take that Loki's just being sent to bed without his dinner—"

Thor interrupted him loudly, "Loki's isolation is absolute, I do not know what more you want." He turned to Clint, "Loki's death would not have brought—what is that you're holding?"

Clint was absorbed with thinking that hearing about Loki's execution wouldn't have been entirely unwelcome to him, either, so it took him a moment to respond. "Um, what? Oh, this?" He stroked his cat's fur, settling it from where it had stood up in alarm at Thor's booming voice. "It's my cat."

"A cat? You keep it as a pet, yes?"

Not entirely sure where Thor had learned that, Clint nodded. "Yeah. I found him in June. He's been living here since then."

Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw Natasha and Steve relaxing—they'd been prepared to intervene in case things got ugly, he realized, which was entirely possible given the volatile combination of personalities in the room.

Bruce stood, taking advantage of Thor's distraction to further defuse the situation. "The cat's been a big help, with, um," he said, looking at Clint, unsure how much the archer would want to share.

Clint decided to just go for it. "Yeah. After you and your brother left I...didn't handle it well. What had happened. Couldn't figure out how to get past what he'd done, what I'd done for him. Spent about a month trying to drink myself to death. The cat gave me something to focus on other than my own damn problems."

Thor looked apologetic. "I...did not realize that my brother's actions had affected you so."

Clint shrugged. "Well, it's in the past." At least, it was getting there. "But now you know why I..."

"Wouldn't mind seeing Loki drawn and quartered," Tony supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, more or less," Clint agreed. His cat wriggled out of his arms and approached Thor cautiously, sniffing the demigod's boots before looking up and him and giving his largest _meow_.

Obligingly, because _everyone _bows to feline manipulation, Thor bent down and picked the cat up. He held the animal out in front of him at arm's length, examining it until the cat gave a twist and clawed his arm. The cat escaped Thor's grip and fell to the ground, skittering away to hide under a table.

"What a strange animal," Thor observed, staring at the shallow scratches on his arm.

"He doesn't like being held like that," Clint pointed out, in his cat's defense. To the cat, he called, "Hey! Cat! C'mere," and patted his leg in invitation.

Slowly, the cat slunk out from under the table and settled back into Clint's lap.

"Cat?" Thor asked. "Why do you address it so? Does it not have a name?"

Everyone looked at Clint expectantly.

"Um. No, I guess he doesn't really have a name," Clint admitted. "I just never...saw the point? I just call him Cat. Or Fucker. Or Fucking Cat, depending on how much of an asshole he's being."

Thor looked a bit perplexed. "Those are not...affectionate terms."

Clint raised an eyebrow. "Cat doesn't mind."

Everyone heard the affirmative _meow_.

* * *

The cat's skills became a crucial part of life at the Tower. Thor decided to stick around for awhile (despite Tony's not-so-subtle efforts to send the demigod back to Asgard) and while everyone mostly got along, Thor and Tony continued to rub each other the wrong way. Thor couldn't figure out that it was only necessary to listen to about 1/3 of what Tony was saying (the rest tended to be comprised entirely of snarky bullshit) and Tony could not, for the life of him, stop insulting Loki.

But even despite the cat's best efforts, Tony was nonetheless thrilled when, about two weeks into Thor's stay, Clint and Natasha got the orders to take the demigod to New Mexico. Thor was going to spend the day answering some questions for a physicist working there, which Thor seemed thrilled about (and Clint knew _that _had nothing to do with advancing the world's understanding of astrophysics). Clint and Natasha had a much less fun assignment—they had to check out an abandoned lab facility in the desert.

Unfortunately, that mission would end the cat's five month hiatus from taking care of Clint, though neither of them knew it beforehand.

Because the mission sounded ridiculously easy, at first. "When are we going?" Clint asked Natasha, sprawled out on the couch, relaxed.

"Now, Barton. Grab your shit."

Clint hated these sudden missions, but he stood from his spot on the couch and waved to the others. "Back in a couple days, I guess." He gestured towards his cat, who was perched on the back of the couch behind Tony's head. "Keep an eye on this fucker, 'kay?" he said, directed primarily at Bruce and Steve—Tony could barely take care of himself, much less another sentient being.

"We will," Steve reassured him, and Clint took a moment to be thankful for the modicum of stability that he had in his life now, for the people who gave him a solid piece of ground to stand on. He paused on the way out to scratch the cat's ears, relishing the way the animal arched up into his hand, before he slipped up to his apartment to pack.

"Would you like me to accompany you?" Thor offered during the flight. "If there is work to be done, I would gladly assist you."

But Natasha declined. "The building's abandoned. Fury cut the funding to the contractor and shut it down last month. We're just making sure they packed everything up right, didn't leave any toxic chemicals lying around, didn't rig the place to blow..."

"Does that happen often?" Thor asked, concerned.

Clint snorted. "No, but more often than you'd think. People sometimes get bitter when they're shut down, they do all kinds of crazy shit."

Thor shook his head. "Tread carefully, in that case."

"We always do," Natasha assured him.

The assassins left the demigod in the care of Jane Foster and company (who were _thrilled _to see him) before heading out to a building in what Clint decided was the exact fucking middle of nowhere. Worse than the compound they'd built around Thor's hammer, and he had thought that was the absolute boonies.

"Sure we're in the right place, Nat?"

She gave him a _look_. "Yeah, Barton. Now move your ass, I want to get this over with."

They made their way into the building, hypervigilant, scanning each room in turn. They made it all the way back to the offices without incident—nothing so much as a paper clip was out of place—and in the absence of any apparent trouble, they were both looking forward to heading back towards civilization.

Perhaps this made them careless.

The very last office was empty, except for a moldy office chair and a single filing cabinet labeled 'research' in the corner. Natasha tried to open the top drawer of the cabinet, but it was locked. She gave a frustrated huff. "Typical. It's always the last damn thing, isn't it?"

Clint nodded emphatically. "Yeah. It is. And if it's research, we can't just leave it...if you want to report to Fury, I'll get the damn thing open." He pulled out his lock picking tools. "Shouldn't be too hard."

Natasha shrugged. "Sure. But why am I always the one talking to Fury?"

That was easy. "Because I don't want to."

She made a very rude gesture at him before slipping out into the hall.

Clint sighed and set to picking the lock. It only took him a few moments, because filing cabinet security isn't really the best, and he wrenched the top drawer open, completely unthinking, just wanting to get this over with and go home.

He had exactly half a second to think, _You're a fucking moron, Barton,_ before his whole world flashed white, then black.

* * *

"Boobytrapped filing cabinet, though? That's some James Bond shit or something right there."

Clint groaned, freshly dragged back into the land of the living. He was still entirely too close to unconsciousness to deal with Tony right now, though, a fact that Bruce apparently registered.

"Keep it down, Tony. His headache's probably already bad enough without input from the peanut gallery. Clint, are you awake?"

_Headache_?

A sharp throbbing registered at the back of his head. Oh. There it was. "Ow," he muttered, followed by, "Fucking ow." He'd woken up in enough hospitals that he didn't even bother with the 'where am I' schtick. Instead, he scoured his memories, looking for whatever had landed him here. There was nothing, but Tony had said something about a booby trapped filing cabinet...

"That's a 'yes, I'm awake,'" Natasha translated. "And also, 'I'm glad you carted my ass back across the country, Natasha.' Or maybe a 'thank you, Natasha, I owe you one more.'"

Bruce chuckled, then said to Clint, "Open your eyes, if you can. I want to check your pupillary response. The doctors at the hospital in New Mexico said it was normal, but we should keep an eye on you. Head trauma can be tricky..."

This didn't seem like a particularly good idea—open eyes were a step further away from 'unconscious' and the pain in his head was making him want to work his way back _towards _it, but he obliged.

And was met with near-complete darkness. "What's wrong with the lights?" Clint rasped, throat dry.

"What do you mean?" came Bruce's voice, closer now than it had been.

"Why's it so fucking dark in here?"

The idle background chatter in the room went silent. Clint, recently whacked in the head, took a second longer than everyone else to get it. Explosion. Right. He'd been injured. And now he was starting to understand how. "It's not dark in here, is it?"

"No, it's not," Bruce answered, grave.

Clint sighed, blinking rapidly. Then, he felt something land lightly on the bed next to him, and he ran a hand absently over the small animal he could not actually see.

* * *

Thanks for reading!

This is probably going to end up being shamelessly fluffy and cheesy, fair warning.

Reviews are my main reason for living, so please lend meaning to my life.


	2. adjustments

Warnings: language. Also some ableist bullshit that I don't personally believe.

My beta, irite, keeps me in line and wrangles Thor. For that I am grateful.

I do not own The Avengers.

* * *

"Your eyes are _fine_," Bruce said for the fifth time, sounding no less calm and patient than he had the first four. It was kind of starting to get on Clint's last nerve.

And it showed. "A fucking filing cabinet blew up in my face. And now I can't see. So I kind of beg to differ!"

The edge of panic in his voice was undeniable despite his best efforts to stifle it. But in this situation, maybe some panic wasn't completely out of place.

It had been about an hour since he'd woken up back in his bedroom at Stark Tower after being blown up in New Mexico. Bruce had dismissed the others (including the cat, who had left with a low growl after being shooed off the bed), saying that he had to go over some medical stuff with Clint, had to run a few tests, and get the archer up to speed on his condition.

According to Bruce (who'd heard from Natasha), Clint had apparently remained unconscious for the trip back across the country due to some combination of pain meds and head trauma, although Natasha told Bruce that Clint _had_ regained consciousness for a while at the hospital in Santa Fe. Clint had no recollection of this, though, which wasn't surprising—Natasha _also _told Bruce that Clint hadn't exactly been...coherent.

He didn't want to think too hard about what he'd said to Natasha, if Bruce's barely-contained laughter was any indication.

As far as injuries went, he wasn't too bad off (by his reckoning; the others seemed to disagree with him), something that he attributed to either really good luck or really good reflexes. He had, according to Bruce, some minor facial burns and a startling lack of eyebrows. The main problem was that the explosion had sent him flying backwards across the room, and he'd landed pretty solidly on the back of his head, fracturing his occipital bone.

"You're going to be out of commission for...awhile," Bruce had told him as soon as Clint was up to listening. "Even without the blindness, this would keep you off duty for a long time."

Bruce assured Clint that he hadn't sustained any injuries to his eyes. But given his current issues, Clint wasn't really sure if he believed that. Which was the crux of the standoff they were currently having.

"Look," Bruce said, and Clint could hear him pacing across his bedroom, "The occipital bone covers the occipital lobe. That's the vision processing center in the brain. An injury to that part of the brain can cause vision issues, including blindness. It's been known to happen, Clint. Even if nothing showed up on the scans they did in New Mexico."

"Okay," Clint took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. That sounded reasonable. And what was more likely, that the doctors had missed an obvious injury to his eyes, or a more hard to notice injury to his brain? "Okay," he repeated. "Can you say for sure that's what happened?"

"I'm pretty sure. Your pupils are reacting to light normally and there's no burns anywhere near your eyes. Can you see _anything_?"

"No. Not really. There's..." he blinked rapidly, "shapes, maybe? Or shadows. It's like it's just really, really dark in here."

Bruce hummed. "That sounds about right. I can contact the doctors at SHIELD, have them send a neurologist over. And an ophthalmologist. But if that's what's going on...it's probably not permanent. More than likely, it'll clear up once you've healed some."

Clint nodded, closing his eyes. 'Probably' not permanent wasn't good enough. If anyone could help with this, he wasn't going to object. Even if he did hate most doctors. "Sure. That'd work."

He heard Bruce stand up. "You should probably stay in bed for the next couple of days, give yourself some time. Head injuries can seem a lot less severe than they are, and that fracture is going to take months to heal, maybe even a year, so don't try to do too much too soon." He paused. "I'm sure Tony is rigging up all kinds of stuff to help you get around, but in the meantime, if you need anything, ask JARVIS. We'll all be around. Do you need anything right now? You should be good on pain meds for another three or four hours, but I could probably get you something right now if you need it."

"Could you send Nat in?" The pain in his head was something he could ignore. But he needed to talk to Natasha, needed to call Fury, needed to find out what his current position was, what this meant for him. He'd been injured on a mission before, but never something that would have him out for months.

Or permanently.

'_Probably' not permanently, Barton._

Bruce sighed, apparently reading Clint's mind. "That's not really taking it easy, Clint. Can't you save the worrying for later? When you _didn't _nearly die less than a day ago?"

"Nope." Like he would be able to get any kind of rest before he'd been debriefed, anyway.

Bruce sighed again. "Fine. But will you at least stay in bed?"

He didn't want to, but Clint knew Bruce was probably right. And it wouldn't be the first time he and Nat had conducted this kind of meeting with one of them laid up in bed. "Yeah, sure."

"Good." He hesitated, clearly choosing his next words carefully. "You know, this doesn't have to be the end of your life—"

He didn't choose his words carefully enough; Clint could not stop his derisive snort. "I'm sorry, doc, but this?" He gestured at his eyes, "This is kind of a big fucking deal." For his whole life, he'd been defined by what he could do with a bow. It was the damn center of what he was, his entire identity hinged on it. And he was trying to keep calm, stay rational, not panic...but the fact remained that he'd just fucking lost _everything _he was and he might never get it back.

"I'm not saying it's not a big deal, I'm just...look, you're more than a sniper."

"Bullshit," Clint muttered. "The only damn thing I know how to do is shoot. Without that, I'm fucking useless. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Write a novel? Take up painting—oh wait, can't do that shit, either."

"Actually, you could—"

But Clint was shaking his head, already having tuned Bruce out. "I really need to talk to Nat. I just...I need to know. Okay?"

And realizing that he wasn't going to get through to Clint, not right now, Bruce agreed. "Fine. But then you need to rest. Doctor's orders."

Clint heard him leave the apartment, and before the door had shut behind him, Clint felt his cat hop up onto the bed next to him. "Hey, cat." Clint sat up, propping himself up against his headboard with pillows—he might be stuck in bed, but he didn't have to look completely helpless. When he was settled, the cat nudged Clint's hand, demanding attention, and he obliged, gently scratching the cat's ears. In response, the cat purred, laying down and stretching out across Clint's lap.

_Well, at least you can make one person happy without being able to see, Barton_.

Natasha came in a few minutes later, greeting him from the doorway of his room with a brusque, "Barton. I hear you're being an idiot already."

That was a little harsh. "What?"

"Banner says you're being an idiot."

Clint doubted that Bruce would actually say that—he was just too damn nice for it. Well, he was too nice to _say _it, anyway, even if he wasn't too nice to think it. So Clint raised an eyebrow. Or, well, attempted to—he didn't actually have any.

"Okay," Natasha amended. "He said you were brooding." She stepped closer to his bed, petting the cat stretched out on Clint's lap. "I assume you want to know what Fury said."

Clint nodded. He'd figured Natasha would have contacted SHIELD after he'd been injured, and she'd probably contacted Fury again once the extent of Clint's injuries came to light.

"He says you're off duty until you've been cleared by medical. So at least a couple of months, from what all the doctors are saying."

"...Anything else?"

Natasha sighed. "Clint, it's too early to tell how this is going to play out. Fury gets that. He's not saying anything definitive, and you shouldn't be _expecting _anything definitive. You could have died yesterday, so why don't you just relax for a couple days and be thankful that you didn't?"

He clenched a fist on the bed beside him before forcing himself to relax. Getting angry wasn't going to help, and besides, when he'd tensed up the damn cat had sunk his claws into Clint's leg. As he relaxed, so did the cat. "Fine. I can just...lay here, or something. And think about how fucking wonderful it is to be alive. How's that? The damn explosion didn't kill me, but the boredom might."

A small, quiet part of his mind wondered if maybe it would have been better if things had turned out...differently. Surviving an explosion to spend the rest of his life being completely fucking useless seemed like a cruel joke. Another cruel joke in the seemingly endless parade of cruel jokes that had become his life.

Unaware of the dark turn Clint's thoughts had taken, Natasha suggested, "I could get you some audio books."

And Clint was too tired, too worn out to do more than sigh and mumble, "Whatever."

From the way things sounded, he was going to have a long time to think about this. Maybe he could work something out.

_That's more optimistic than you've ever been, Barton._

* * *

Clint stayed in bed for almost three whole days, sleeping for the most part, occasionally listening to audio books (Harry Potter; Natasha thought she was _hilarious_) and wondering what, exactly, he was supposed to do with himself.

For the first two days, he had periodic visitors—the doctors from SHIELD came by and confirmed Bruce's diagnosis of 'cortical blindness,' Tony stopped by to install some fixtures to help him get around his apartment more easily (and talked Clint's ear off in the process), Steve came by to listen to the Harry Potter audio books (and probably keep Clint company, though the supersoldier was smart enough not to admit it), Bruce stopped by several times to make sure Clint was comfortable, and Natasha was there almost constantly, attending to a variety of tasks (including cleaning the litter box—Clint considered this revenge for the Harry Potter) that Clint couldn't manage on his own just yet. Along with his cat, then, Clint was hardly ever alone.

Early on day three, though, Clint had mostly gone insane from boredom, had started having Harry Potter-infused dreams, and he was ready to get out of bed and travel further than the bathroom, even if it meant walking head-on into walls. The pain emanating from the back of his skull had mostly faded to a dull throb, and as long as he didn't turn his head too fast, or stand up too fast, or move much, he felt pretty much normal. Given that, he thought it was about time for a change of scenery. Even if he couldn't, well, actually see anything.

"That's a lot of 'contingencies,' Clint," Natasha said, after Clint rattled off his list of 'I'll be fine ifs.' "Do you really think it's a good idea for you to be moving around?"

"Nat, I just want to go down to the common room, it's not like I'm going to parachute into Somalia or something. Oh, Christ, I said 'common room,' I need to get away from this wizard shit..."

Apparently feeling pity for him, Natasha agreed, "Fine." And then her tone changed, and Clint could hear her grinning, "There's a Harry Potter movie marathon on, you can listen to that for a couple hours. Rogers has been watching it all day, he'd probably like the company..."

"I don't care. I just can't take lying here another damn minute."

"Wow, you _must _be serious. You ready to go now?"

"Been ready for three days, Nat." He swung his legs over the edge of his bed, which made him woozy. "Woah. Okay, that sucked." He took a deep breath and stood up. "How's my hair?"

It was sticking up in every direction (personal hygiene had been a bit of a challenge since the accident; he'd only just mastered the shower an hour ago, and he hadn't been able to find his comb afterwards) but Natasha didn't really look before assuring him, "It's fine. Your shirt's on backwards, though."

Clint sighed, but wiggled it around so it was on the right way. "Better?"

"Yeah, you're good." Natasha grabbed his elbow. "Let's go."

She led him down to the main common area and deposited him in an armchair in front of the television.

"Hey," Steve greeted them. To Clint, he said, "Finally busting out of your room, hey? Good to see you're feeling up to it."

Clint leaned back in his chair, trying to get a handle on the supersoldier's location. He thought Steve might be on one of the couches. "Not sure I am, actually. But I couldn't take any more fucking Harry Potter."

"Oh...um..." The commercial on the TV ended and the program Steve was watching resumed. It was, as Natasha had said (jokingly, Clint had thought) Harry Potter.

"No fucking way."

"At least you don't have to watch it?" Natasha pointed out, circling the room. Clint tried to follow her voice, but it was harder than he'd thought it would be. "Anyway," Natasha went on, "I need to get going; Fury has some things he wants me to go over about our last mission. I'll be back this afternoon. You gonna be okay 'til then?"

"He'll be fine," Tony assured her. Clint didn't know when he'd gotten there. "Me and Steve'll watch Katniss, don't worry. Go do your little spy thing."

Clint sighed, irritated both by the mother henning and by the strain of trying to keep track of everyone. "I'll be fine. If I need...anything...I'm sure one of these _wonderful _people will help me out."

"Sure we will!" Tony exclaimed, either missing or ignoring Clint's sarcasm.

"He'll be okay with us," Steve told her, well aware of Natasha's slightly overprotective tendencies. "Really."

Apparently satisfied (because Steve was trustworthy even if Tony was...questionable), Natasha said, "Okay. I'll see you all later."

She left. Less than ten seconds later, Tony plopped down on the arm of Clint's chair and asked, "Can I get you anything? Food? Beverage? Booze? Pain meds? Booze to go with your pain meds?"

Surprised at Tony's sudden proximity (and annoyed by the fact that he hadn't registered the billionaire moving), Clint jerked back, causing a dull spike of pain to shoot through his head. "Could you _not _do that?"

"Do what?"

"...Sneak up on me." Clint knew Tony hadn't exactly been _sneaking_, but this was the first time he'd been up and about since the accident. Really, it was the first time he'd actually had to deal with the whole not-being-able-to-see thing, and after only five minutes he was becoming overwhelmed. It was one thing to lay in bed, traversing between his room and the bathroom, having someone bring him food and anything else he might need. It was completely different out here, trying to keep track of everyone, trying to stay on his guard. Because yeah, he trusted them, but right now he didn't have a choice _except_ to trust them. He couldn't protect himself, couldn't do a damn thing ('_cause you're fucking useless, Barton_), and _that _stabbed him right in the chest.

_Anything _could happen, and he couldn't do _shit_.

Tony stood up, apparently unaware of Clint's burgeoning panic. "Geez, someone's touchy. Maybe a drink would do you good, Legolas."

Bruce (_When the _fuck _did he get here_?) chided, "Absolutely not, not with that kind of head injury. He shouldn't even be sitting up for extended periods yet."

"Oh, come on, Banner, don't be such a stick in the mud—"

"Dr. Banner's kind of the authority on this, Tony," Steve added. "I don't think Clint should—"

"Indeed!" Thor boomed, and Clint jumped. If he hadn't even noticed fucking _Thor _coming in, he was in serious shit. "I think it is wisest that Agent Barton attend Dr. Banner's words most assiduously."

It was too much, all these people talking. And moving. Clint hadn't realized how much he depended on his eyes before (_Really? They call you fucking 'Hawkeye,_' _dumbass, I think that's a clue_) but now that he was without them, he was floundering. "Everybody. Stop. Talking." Clint growled, fisting his hands in his lap, willing everyone into silence. Thankfully, it worked.

Clint got the feeling that everyone was staring at him in anticipation, waiting for his next words, but he hadn't planned that far, had only needed them to _stop_.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked quietly, several seconds later, when it became clear Clint wasn't going to say anything else.

Clint clenched his jaw, then shook his head. He was going to have to go out on a limb here. If he really trusted these people, and hadn't been lying to himself about it for the last six months, then this was something they needed to know. "No."

"What's up?" That was Tony, and he actually sounded _worried_. That was...unexpected.

"I..." Was there a way to say this that _didn't_ sound crazy? He considered and decided that no, there probably wasn't. "I don't like not knowing where everyone is. I don't like that I _can't _know."

"What, your super assassin senses aren't compensating? I figured you'd have some echolocation thing going on by now." Clint heard a muffled 'thump' followed by Tony's whined, "Fucking ow, Cap, I'm just kidding with him, sheesh. If you're going to break an arm, aim for the left one at least!"

"Now, children," came Bruce's voice. "Play nice. I'm sorry, Clint, we should have known it would take awhile for you to adjust. What can we do to help?"

Really, Clint didn't know. So he admitted as much. "Not sure. But don't sneak up on me." It sounded petulant (especially considering no one had even been _trying _to sneak up on him), but he didn't censor it. If he'd learned one thing since May, it was that trying to hold all this shit in didn't help anything, ever.

"How about we let you know when we come into the room, to start?" Bruce suggested.

"And we won't get too close 'til you know we're nearby," Tony added. "How's that?"

Those sounded like a pretty damn good start, so Clint nodded and managed a terse, "Sure."

Right then, something jumped up and landed in his lap. Clint jumped before quickly composing himself and muttering, "Fucking cat." The damn cat had been jumping all over him for three days and it hadn't startled him this badly until right now. Apparently, he was more wound up that he'd thought.

For a moment, he was tempted to punch something. Or someone. Because this shit was completely ridiculous. Being this jumpy was exhausting, for one—less than ten minutes in and he was ready to go back to sleep. And he knew it made him look weak, or crazy, or both that he couldn't just take this in stride. His reaction was humiliating, but he didn't know how to stamp it out. Trying to imagine a future like this? Days, weeks, months...years?

He wasn't ready to do that. Maybe even couldn't.

_It won't always be like this. It might not be permanent. And if it is...you'll get used to it. All of it. It'll just take time._

_Except I don't _want _to get used to it._

* * *

Natasha came back at what Tony told Clint was just after 1:30. The archer had settled down some after his rough start to the morning, and since he'd made them turn the movies off (there was only so much he could take—and Thor could damn well go watch in another room, since he was the only one invested in finishing) he'd been entertaining the present Avengers (minus Thor, who _had _gone somewhere else to watch the 'academy of sorcery') with stories about the missions he'd been on with Natasha over the years.

He was just launching into Budapest when Natasha stormed into the room—he knew she was storming, because he could hear her stomping down the hall. And that never boded well. She didn't show her anger. That she was doing it so openly meant that she was probably beyond pissed.

"Barton," she barked from the doorway to the common area.

Great, she was pissed off and it had something to do with him. Fantastic. "Yeah?"

"Fury wants to see you."

"Um, how 'bout no?" Tony snarked from his place on the couch. "Barton's on sick leave, that means no working."

"What does Fury want to talk about?" Steve asked, always more reasonable than Tony.

Natasha wasn't sure how much of his business Clint would want the others knowing (he'd always been so _private_) so she waited until Clint prompted, "Yeah, Nat, what's on his mind?"

"It's about your sick leave, actually. So kind of important."

Clint sighed. It wasn't like he was going to say 'no' to the director's missive—people just didn't say 'no' to Fury—but the fact that it was work-related (not that he'd expected Fury would want to chat about the weather or something) meant his hands were tied. "Fine."

"Not fine, actually," Bruce objected. "You're in no condition to leave, you probably don't want to try a car ride at this point—"

"Actually...Fury's waiting in your apartment, Clint." Natasha sounded uncomfortable. "I didn't want you overextending yourself, so I made him come here."

Clint marveled at Natasha's backbone. Personally, Clint would never have attempted to _make _Fury do anything. "Well, I guess that's settled." He pushed his cat off his lap (where he'd been napping for the last couple of hours), thoroughly offending said feline if his startled hiss was anything to go by. "Bring me upstairs?"

He got to his feet carefully, feeling around with his toes to make sure he wasn't about to step on anything (like the cat; that had happened about four times in three days, and Clint was sure the animal was going to disown him soon if he didn't shape up) before he held out his elbow. Natasha took it a moment later.

She brought him up to his apartment. Outside his door, she asked, "Do you want me to stick around?"

Part of him did, but another part (a bigger part) felt that he'd already filled his quota of pathetic behavior for the day, so he told her, "Nah, I'm fine." Then, lower, "It's just Fury, right?"

And compared to the meeting he'd had with the director at the end of June, when he'd been trying to get reinstated after his month-long bender, this one should be a piece of cake, right? This time, he wasn't begging for his job, trying to prove that he had enough of a handle on himself that he could perform his duties without endangering himself or others. This wasn't going to require a psych evaluation or a drug test or six weeks of intensive therapy. All he was going to do was have a little chat about how long he was going to be off duty.

So why was his heart hammering in his chest?

_Because this might be more than a 'little chat.' What if he decides he can't take the risk, waiting 'til you can fucking see again? _'_Cause hiring you back at all was enough of a risk. _ _What if—_

Clint cut that thought off abruptly. It was irrational. Pessimistic. Two things that he had to struggle against, yes, but two things he could beat.

He didn't realize Natasha had said something until she prodded him, "Hey, are you listening?"

"What? No, I'm not."

Normally, she would have smacked him upside the head, but apparently in light of his fractured skull, she opted to refrain. She _did _sound impatient, though, when she repeated, "I said give me a call when you're done and we can get something to eat. I'm sure those idiots downstairs forgot to feed you."

It was true—they had. But in their defense, Clint said, "I wasn't hungry, Nat." Which was also true.

"Whatever. Just call me." He heard her footsteps retreating down the hall, and so he reached down and felt for the doorknob. He let himself into his apartment.

It was completely silent.

He felt his way through to his living room, knowing these rooms well enough that even sightless he was fairly capable of maneuvering around without walking into anything. He was aided by the sensors Tony had installed, which let out a variety of sounds if he was about to walk into a wall or something.

He was standing in the doorway of his living room when, right in his ear, Fury said, "Barton."

Clint startled badly, and his first reaction this time was anger. "What the _fuck_? Sir?"

Fury chuckled. "Sorry, Barton, I thought you would know I was here."

Clint heaved a sigh. He wasn't sure if people were consistently overestimating his ability to adapt to this, or if he was just failing spectacularly. Remembering his manners, he motioned around. "Make yourself at home, sir." For his part, Clint gingerly made his way over to the couch, settling down gently.

He heard Fury move around the room and sit down in one of the chairs. After a moment, the director spoke, "I've been going over the information from your admitting physician in New Mexico, the neurologist from SHIELD, and Banner's notes. They all seem to agree that this issue with your damn eyes is actually an issue with your damn brain, and that it'll probably clear up on its own if we give it enough time. But no one can say how long that might be."

Clint nodded slowly. He'd heard this before, had gone over it extensively with both Bruce and the guy from SHIELD.

"And even if you weren't having eye problems...brain problems...what the fuck ever, you still did a number on your damn skull and that's going to keep you out of the field for the next several months. Banner says it might be up to a year."

"Yes, sir?" Clint wasn't really sure where this was going. It didn't sound like it was leading up to 'I'm going to fire you.'

"Have you considered other employment options, Barton?"

Or maybe it _was _leading up to 'I'm going to fire you.'

* * *

Thanks for reading!

Reviews will make me merry. And jolly. I might even sing a cheery song.


	3. discussion

**Warnings: colorful language.**

**Thanks to irite for being betatastic!**

**I do not own The Avengers.**

* * *

"I'm sorry, sir, what was that?" Clint asked, head cocked slightly to one side, lack-of-eyebrows furrowed.

"I said," Fury enunciated clearly, "Have you considered other employment options? Damn, Barton, are your ears going along with your eyes?"

Clint didn't answer. Without any visual input, he couldn't tell if Fury was fucking around with him in some sick attempt at a joke or if the director was posing a serious question. He was leaning towards 'serious question' though (his paranoia and pessimism had a bad habit of combining in a truly unfortunate way) and he stood up abruptly. "What the fuck, sir?"

He heard Fury stand as well. "It's a legitimate question, Barton. Medical might not clear you for a whole year. That's a long time to be on leave."

_Yeah, it's a long time for SHIELD to pay you to sit around, Barton_.

"And you just got back from leave a couple of months ago," Fury continued. "Seems like this whole thing is kind of an inconvenience."

Clint started to pace, and promptly banged his hip on a bookcase, Tony's fancypants warning system doing nothing to help his clumsiness. "_Fuck, _ow!" He rubbed the spot briefly, angrily, before he muttered, "Inconvenience, yeah. That's one way to put it. Sir." He clenched his jaw against saying anything else, against the rising tide of panic and self-doubt that was attempting to overthrow his self control. _He can't fire you for being injured, it's in your damn contract._

_Right_?

Clint took a moment to consider that he probably should have read his contract at some point. But that definitely seemed like the kind of thing that would be in there. Should be in there. It just felt like something Coulson would have insisted on.

"Look, Barton," Fury sighed. "Spending up to a year waiting for medical clearance just seems like a waste of—"

"A waste of resources, yeah," Clint interrupted, understanding clearly where this was going. "A waste of money. 'Cause what the fuck good is a sniper who can't fucking see?"

"What? Barton—"

But Clint was on a roll. "I mean, it's not like I'm not already a huge liability, with the whole mind-controlled-by-Loki-slash-became-an-alcoholic thing. No, I get it. Admin's on your ass because you reinstated me, and now you're looking to cut your losses on the Little Assassin Who Couldn't—"

Fury let a hand drop onto Clint's shoulder, and Clint jumped—he hadn't heard the director approach him. "Barton. Shut the hell up, you're making yourself look stupid."

Clint, for once, did exactly as he was told. This surprised them both. After a moment, Fury continued, "I'm not here to fire you. Where the hell would you get that idea? No, wait, don't answer that." Fury let his hand slide off Clint's shoulder. "I've talked this over with some of the higher ups, and I have a proposition for you."

Taken off guard, Clint didn't reply. Fury took that to mean that he was listening, and continued, "A year is a long time for someone of your caliber to be off duty. Seems like a waste of talent, Barton."

Clint couldn't help it; he scoffed, "Yeah? What talent? Only thing I'm good at, I can't do right now."

The annoyance Fury was feeling was evident in his voice. "Right now, you're three days past a serious head injury. You shouldn't be doing _shit_. Let alone worrying what your future is with our organization. So I came to put your damn mind at rest, even though Romanoff chewed me a new one for coming over here so soon after you were hurt. After all that, why don't you sit your ass down and let me talk?"

"Um." This wasn't at all what he'd been expecting, and he was thrown, both by how badly he'd misjudged the situation and by Fury's apparent offer. So he slowly made his way back around the couch (mindful of the bookcase this time) and sat back in his spot.

A moment later, Fury said (back in his chair, apparently), "First, I want to assure you that your position isn't in jeopardy."

Hearing the words put so bluntly was a relief, and Clint felt the tension in his chest that he had not even been fully aware of release. Slowly, he nodded. "Thank you, sir."

"You don't need to thank me—Barton, is that your cat?"

"I really hope so, sir," Clint answered promptly, not pointing out the obvious fact that he couldn't see the cat, and could thus neither confirm nor deny its identity. "I'm going to assume yes."

A moment later, he felt the small weight land on the couch next to him, and he raised a hand and began to pet the cat absently. At Fury's chuckle, he turned his head towards the director. "What?"

"Never pictured you as the crazy cat lady type is all."

As it turned out, there were exactly two people in the world who could get away with calling Clint 'crazy cat lady,' and Nick Fury was one of them (the other one was Natasha, of course, and she delighted in that particular nickname far more than Clint thought was necessary). So Clint just sighed. "Yeah, whatever. Laugh it up, sir."

The cat jumped off his lap and apparently onto Fury's, if the director's "I don't think so, motherfucker," and the answering irritated meow were anything to go by.

"Be nice to that cat," Clint warned him. "He's probably the smartest person living in this Tower. God only knows what he'll do for revenge if you piss him off."

"Barton, I am not walking back into SHIELD covered in damn cat fur. I have a meeting with the leaders of five not-so friendly countries later and that shit just isn't dignified."

With a snort, Clint muttered, "Cat fur can be dignified, sir." Personally, he'd given up months ago on trying to keep his clothes fur-free. It was futile, and he wore enough black that the fur wasn't usually an issue anyway.

"Whatever. Look, do you want to hear my proposition or not?"

And Clint did—now that he was positive that he wasn't about to be fired, his curiosity was piqued. "Sorry, sir. Yeah, please, proposition me."

He could practically hear Fury rolling his eye.

"Cute, Barton. Now, the medical reports I've read indicate that your head injury could take up to a year to heal completely. It's possible that you could be cleared for field work before then, but I don't want to take any risks. Now, obviously you're going to be completely out of commission for awhile, but it's possible you could be cleared for non-field work in eight to ten weeks. So, I was thinking a temporary reassignment might be in order."

That was all well and good, but there was something that merited mentioning. "Director, I can't _see_."

"No shit, Barton, really? Hell, far as we know, that puts you on track for _my _job." Clint smirked, and Fury continued, "I was led to believe that your loss of vision was temporary."

"Yeah, okay, but what if—"

"And even if it's _not_, that doesn't mean much. There's plenty you can do—"

They were back to this. Clint interrupted Fury, "Bullshit. I'm good at one thing, and now I can't do it." He felt his cat rubbing around his ankles, and he leaned over to pick him up, petting him with more force than was comfortable, if the cat wriggling away with a muted hiss was any indication. "I can't even pet a fucking _cat—_"

"Damn it. Okay, I was hoping to avoid the pep talk. I thought Romanoff would do it, or Rogers, or fuck, I don't know, maybe Stark if he can get his head out of his ass for five minutes. Apparently they all dropped the ball, so listen up. Just because shooting's the only thing you've ever done doesn't mean it's the only thing you _can_ do. Comprende? So quit saying that shit. You're not allowed to be this fucking glum, fuck, I'm halfway to where you are, and _my _life sure as hell isn't over."

It was abrupt, and brusque, and exactly the kind of pep talk Clint needed. "Uh, sure. Sir. I guess. But what else could I do?"

Clint heard Fury stand. "Help with training new initiates, work on strategy, plan missions, design equipment. All kinds of shit, Barton. The kind of experience you have? Not much you can't do. But I need to get back to base. Think about what I said, and for Christ's sake get some rest, you look like hell. Jesus, you've got no damn eyebrows. Maybe try to avoid that kind of close call in the future?"

Standing to 'see' Fury out, Clint said, "Duly noted, sir. I'll try not to let anything else blow up in my face."

"That's all I'm asking, Barton."

A moment later, Clint heard the door to his apartment open and close. He sat back down with a sigh, leaning back into the couch. His lean turned quickly into a slump, and then he just flopped over on his back, gently laying his head down on the throw pillows. All of the moving around throughout the day had tired him out, and, combined with the stress from the meeting he'd just had, he was suddenly exhausted.

He let his eyes drift shut, and a moment later, he felt his cat land on his chest. He petted him more gently this time and apologized, "Sorry about earlier. I was..."

_You're talking to the cat again._

Clint snapped his jaw shut, but then decided 'fuck it' and kept going. Everyone already knew he talked to the cat, what did it matter if he was overheard or something? "I was stressed out. But apparently Fury doesn't think I'm fucking useless like this, who'd've figured that? Fucking cat, _you_ probably think I'm useless, can't even fucking feed you anymore. But you've still stuck around..." By the end of the sentence, he was mumbling, tongue feeling awkward and heavy in his mouth. Still, he managed to get out, "Maybe he's right, d'you think?" before he dozed off completely.

* * *

Natasha stopped by Clint's apartment exactly four minutes after Fury had left (she'd had JARVIS tell her when the director had departed) but when she got there, Clint was sprawled out on his couch, mouth agape, one leg thrown over the edge, dead to the world. So, with a huge, beleaguered sigh, she repositioned his leg (he didn't need back pain to go with his head trauma) and, wondering when she became his mother, pulled a blanket off his bed for him. She draped it over him (and the sleeping cat on his chest) before heading back down to the common area where she'd left Tony, Steve, and Bruce.

She needed to talk to them, needed to check in (in a totally non-overprotective way) on how their morning had gone.

She found that the three of them had been rejoined by Thor (he had just finished the fifth Harry Potter movie and was feeling emotional), and Tony and Bruce were explaining some of the CGI tricks in the movies to Steve, who found it fascinating.

All four of them snapped to attention when she greeted them with a casual, "Hey, guys."

"Natasha. You look radiant this afternoon," Tony started, but her glare cut him off before he could get too far into his flattery shtick. "Okay, what's up?"

She shrugged. "Oh, not much." Sauntering into the room, she asked, "How was your morning?"

"If you're going to grill us about Barton, you can just do it," Tony pointed out. "We're not exactly a very subtle, secretive bunch. Your boyfriend was fine this morning. Afternoon. Whatever."

Natasha rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore the 'boyfriend' dig. "I'm sure he was." Of course she was sure. Why wouldn't he have been fine?

"Actually," Bruce said cautiously, "He was a little jumpy."

Natasha frowned. _Because he's Clint Fucking Barton and he's never fine, that's why._

"That's true," Steve added. "He didn't really like that he couldn't see where we were in the room. I think Thor scared him half to death when he showed up."

Natasha made a thoughtful noise. "That's a little strange...but I guess it makes sense." After all, in his work, Clint tended to rely heavily on his vision. He was used to _looking _at things, observing them visually. She spent more time listening, observing through her other senses. It would probably be tough for him to adjust to doing that—it wasn't that he was unobservant, he just tended to lean on his vision first.

But the jumpiness around his teammates was what was really odd. Stark Tower was secure. The residential areas were practically locked down, impossible to gain access to unless you were supposed to be there. It wasn't like he was going to be attacked by some unknown entity. No, the jumpiness really was a reaction to the rest of the team.

And he trusted his teammates. With his life, on more than one occasion. Why would he be afraid of them? Unless maybe he _didn't _trust them, not as much as he'd thought he did. Or as much as they'd all thought he did.

If that was the case, it was...troubling.

"We set up some ground rules," Tony said easily, unaware that anything was amiss. "We're not going to 'sneak up' on him, gonna let him know who's around, that kind of thing." He shrugged. "Can't really blame him for being a little uptight."

"Indeed," Thor agreed. "It is difficult to adjust to a change of that magnitude, to lose something that you have depended on for your protection. Perhaps he feels...vulnerable."

It was a good point—and something that Thor would know intimately, actually. Natasha nodded. "Yeah, you're right." And really, it made more sense that Clint was just feeling exposed, rather than feeling any kind of mistrust towards the rest of the team. Still, she made a note to mention it to Clint, to maybe smack some sense into his stupid, cracked head. "Anything else you need to report?"

"Nah, not really. Well, Thor's really taking the death of Sirius Black to heart." Tony smirked. "Aside from that, things've been pretty quiet around here." He paused, then asked (far too casually to actually be casual), "So, what was on Fury's little mind today?"

"Stark, leave the subtlety to the professionals," Natasha advised. "You just said yourself it wasn't your thing."

Tony looked affronted, but before he could retort, Bruce mused, "You said it was about his sick leave. Was there a problem with it? Because it's pretty clear in his contract that injuries incurred on missions are fully covered..." At Natasha's incredulous look, he asked, "What? It was in his notes from medical."

Natasha shook her head slowly. "I think you know more about his contract than he does, is all. No, there wasn't a problem. Fury wanted to talk about possible reassignment until Clint is cleared for field work. Although _why _he couldn't wait another four or five days, I don't know..."

"Well..." Bruce trailed off.

"Well what?" Tony and Natasha snapped in unison when Bruce made no further effort to speak.

"What? Oh. Yeah. Maybe Fury knew Clint's just been sitting around and worrying for three days."

"Worrying about what?" Steve asked.

Bruce sighed. "It's just something he said right after he woke up. He said he was, and I quote, 'fucking useless' now. He seemed to think that if he couldn't see, his life was basically over."

Steve, Tony, and Thor had all flinched at the phrase 'fucking useless,' but not Natasha. She'd already known that Clint felt that way. At least, she'd suspected. "It's not surprising. He's been earning his living with a bow about forever. He's never needed to do anything else. That he might have to..."

"But the loss of vision isn't permanent," Bruce pointed out. "Odds are, he'll be back to normal once he's had some time to heal."

"That's true," Natasha said. "But he's been known to be kind of a pessimist when it comes to things like this. Probably, he's decided that, even if the odds are in his favor, the blindness is permanent."

"But if it's not, how long's he going to be off duty? Dr. Banner said it could be up to a year?" Steve asked, looking between Natasha and the physicist. "That's an awfully long time."

"Yeah," Bruce confirmed. "Skull fractures are tricky, especially ones like Clint's. There's an increased risk of meningitis because of the location, for one, so it's important that he heals completely before getting back into the field. What kind of reassignment was Fury thinking?"

Natasha shrugged. "Not sure. It depends on how the vision thing turns out. From what he was saying to me, though, there's about a thousand things he could use Clint for, with or without vision. The only problem's going to be getting the idiot to listen long enough to get the message."

She hoped Fury had managed to get his point across. Because that, at least, would be one hell of a step in the right direction.

* * *

When Clint woke up, he knew immediately that he wasn't alone.

This did not take a lot of observation or reasoning; whoever was with him was snoring.

He sat up, startling his cat off his chest (and probably offending the animal beyond all repair), and called, "Hello?"

The snoring ceased, and a moment later, Natasha mumbled, "'Bout damn time you woke up. Thought I was going to have to watch you sleep all night."

Clint pointed out, "You weren't watching me sleep. You were asleep. And you snore, Nat. I've been telling you for years."

"I don't snore," she denied. Not giving him a chance to reply, she told him, "It's almost 7:00. Are you hungry yet?"

He was. Ravenous, even. "Um, yeah. Sorry, what time is it?"

"Almost 7:00. As in, twenty-four hours since your last meal, dumbass. Do you wanna go grab something? Or, there's pizza downstairs. I think the eighth Harry Potter movie is on."

Clint shook his head and immediately regretted it as a wave of dizziness nearly knocked him over. "Ugh. Um. No. Banner said I should probably avoid cars and given what just happened, I think he's right." He shrugged. "Pizza's fine. No Potter." He stood up slowly, gingerly, and was pleased to note that the dizziness from a moment ago didn't reappear. "How do I look? Presentable?"

His hair was sticking up worse than it had been that morning, his clothes were rumpled from having been slept in, but Natasha didn't really look before assuring him, "You're fine."

"Great. Lemme just take care of some stuff and we can go."

She made herself useful while he used the bathroom by filling the cat's bowls, and was more than a little disappointed when Clint came out with his hair flattened. "Found my comb," he told her, triumphantly, with a smirk that told her he _knew _she'd been fucking with him.

They made their way out of his apartment and down towards the main common area.

It was interesting, Natasha noted. While they had been in his apartment, Clint had been more or less at ease. Sure, he'd been mindful so that he didn't step on his cat (who'd mostly taken to sitting on the counters or other high surfaces and looking imperious to avoid the danger), and he'd given most of his furniture a wide berth, but he'd been relaxed, easy.

The second the door shut behind him, though, he tensed. It was subtle, but once Natasha noticed it, it was undeniable. "What's up?" she asked him as she led him towards the elevator with a hand on his elbow.

"What do you mean?" was his terse reply.

"You just went all rigor mortis, Barton."

He huffed a small laugh. "Not the best visual ever, but you have a way with words." He made a visible effort to relax before he said, "Nothing's up."

Natasha pressed the 'down' button at the elevator. "Banner said you were kind of tense this morning."

Clint shrugged. "Stark was getting up in my shit. Thor was loud. People were everywhere. It was kind of a lot to deal with, you know?"

They both got on the elevator. Natasha pressed the button for the appropriate floor. "Yeah, I'm sure it was." She looked up at him, still not used to the way he couldn't quite focus on her. "Thor thought you might be feeling...vulnerable. Like you can't protect yourself."

Natasha knew immediately that had been the wrong thing to say. "Vulnerable, yeah," Clint snorted derisively, his shoulders re-stiffening. "I'm sure the Norse Motherfucking God of Thunder knows all about that kind of shit."

"Actually, he does," Natasha said, keeping her own temper in check. "He was stripped of his powers before he was banished to Earth. Which you know. You were there."

"Yeah. And he _still _took out every single SHIELD operative we threw at him." The elevator doors opened and they both got off. "That's really fucking vulnerable, Nat, being able to take down a slew of highly trained agents without breaking a sweat." He shook his head. "Us mere mortals are a little more fragile than that."

Natasha had about a thousand things she wanted to say (regarding his attitude, mostly, because this shit? Needed to stop.) but she bit her tongue. After all, she'd clearly hit the nail on the head (that kind of reaction could only mean she was right) and so launching into lecture mode probably wasn't going to help. Instead, she fought her urge to leave him standing in the hall—because where did he get off talking to her like that—and changed the topic. "What did Fury want?"

Clint scoffed, "Don't act like you don't know. He said you talked."

And he didn't say anything else.

Wordlessly, Natasha dragged him the rest of the way to the common area, her grip on his elbow perhaps a little tighter than it should have been.

She deposited him on the couch nearest to the TV (after tersely informing him about who was in the room and where), so he could clearly hear the last Harry Potter movie (she was only feeling a _little _vindictive) and came back a moment later with food. "Here. Eat."

Something in her tone led him to comply wordlessly, and as he took the offered plate, she sat down at the opposite end of the couch with her own pizza.

Clint made it all the way through his first slice before he set the crust down and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry for being an asshole. It's just...been a lot to deal with. A lot to think about. I'm still processing."

Natasha sighed as well. He _had _been an asshole, but it definitely wasn't the worst he'd ever been. Not even close. And she'd had her fair share of asshole moments in their relationship, too, so she just chuckled, "Were you being an asshole? I didn't notice."

"What? Barton's being an asshole? Stop the presses!" Tony butted in, wedging himself between Clint and Natasha on the couch. "'Cause that's definitely news."

Clint flinched away from the sudden invasion of his personal space, and Tony immediately stood back up with a hurried, "Sorry, wasn't thinking."

"It's fine," Clint growled, revealing the fact that it was _not _fine. He shifted back to how he'd been sitting before. "I'm just being pa—"

"If you say 'pathetic,'" Natasha informed him, her voice icy, "I can't be held responsible for what happens to you. I don't want to hear that shit."

Clint turned his head towards her in what was almost a glare. "Can we not do this right now?"

"Do what?" Steve asked, coming over to investigate the potential conflict. He'd been watching from across the room and decided it was time to intervene—it looked like Natasha was going to attack Clint, and Clint looked about three seconds from attacking Tony, and all of that was counterproductive to building a good team dynamic.

"Nat thinks it's pep talk time," Clint muttered, trying to locate Steve. He crossed his arms over his chest, apparently unaware of how petulant it made him look. "Fury did that already, though, so can we just _not_?"

"Okay, you really need to stop—" Natasha started, but was interrupted by Steve's ringing cell phone.

Surprised, the supersoldier answered. "Hello?"

It was Fury. Apparently, his meeting with the leaders of five not-so-friendly countries hadn't gone exactly according to plan—in fact, it had gone very, very badly—and now he needed a team to extract a couple of Americans from a hostage situation on the other side of the world. For some reason or another (Steve wasn't stupid enough to press for unnecessary details), he'd decided sending a handful of superheroes would be the best option.

"Plane leaves in an hour, Rogers. Get your team together. I'll send the rest of the details."

"Yes, sir." But the line was already dead. Steve hung up, somehow refraining from groaning. "Okay, guys, we have a mission."

Natasha shot Clint a look that he could not see. "We're going to finish this conversation, Barton."

"Can't wait," Clint grumbled, settling back into the couch.

* * *

**Thanks for reading!**

**Probably one more chapter will finish this one off. Exciting news. For me, anyway.**

**Reviews are my life's meaning, etc. So please review.**


	4. perspective

**Warnings: colorful language, fluff.**

**My beta, irite, is amazing and fantastic and fabulous. **

**I do not own The Avengers.**

* * *

Steve quickly explained what Fury wanted them to do with the hostage situation (namely bust in and rescue the hostages if their captors refused to release them within the allotted time parameters). Then he looked around the room, sizing them all up. "Okay, I want Tony, Natasha—"

Tony, regardless of the situation, couldn't pass up an opening like that. "Aw, Cap, I know you want me, but you don't have to be so forward—"

Natasha interjected, "Is this really the time, Stark? We need to plan—"

"I do not understand. What exactly is it that Director Fury wishes of us?" Thor inquired loudly to the room at large, having ignored Steve's explanation in favor of stuffing his face with pizza.

Steve patiently started to explain again, with frequent (and unhelpful) interruptions from Tony.

About halfway through (when it became clear Tony had no intention of ever letting Steve finish), Bruce raised his hand.

Natasha snorted—that was so much like him—and it caught Steve's attention. He glanced over at her, and she pointed towards Bruce. Steve swiveled his head around. "Bruce?"

"Sorry to interrupt," he apologized, even though Steve looked grateful for the break, "But I was thinking...maybe I should stay here?" He glanced over at Clint, who was sitting on the couch (_Sulking_, Natasha thought) with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. "I mean, I don't think I'd be much use in a hostage situation...might make things, um, awkward. You know. Smashing and all. Not very diplomatic."

Natasha admired his tact. Clint would rail against the idea of a babysitter—even if that's what she'd been doing for days, more or less—but the way Bruce volunteered to stick around with him was subtle (and self-deprecating) enough that he couldn't really argue without insulting Bruce. Of course, Clint knew what was up—Natasha could see it in the tension in his shoulders—but she knew he wasn't going to say anything. No, he'd just stew.

"I think we're past diplomacy at this point," Steve mused, "But you're right. I was thinking you could sit this one out. We're aiming for quick, in and out. Minimal damage to persons and property." He glanced at Clint. "Could really use—"

Natasha glared at him, cutting him off. She knew that Steve really wished Clint could come on this mission—minimizing damage was kind of his thing. At the same time, there was no point in stating the obvious—that he _couldn't_. And it wasn't like Clint wasn't _already _dwelling on how 'useless' he was at the moment. She wasn't going to help him out with it. She had a different plan.

Wisely, Steve took the hint and changed tactics. "So, the plane leaves in an hour. Everyone suit up and meet me in the garage."

Tony shot him an incredulous look. "Yeah, Cap, I don't suit up and then _drive_. Not the most comfortable, you know?"

Steve paused for a moment, and Natasha got the distinct impression that he was counting to ten in his head. When he spoke, he sounded nonetheless irritated. "Okay, suit up and_ meet us there_, then, Tony, honestly, do you have to be so damn _difficult_?"

"But then I have to spend like, forever on a _plane_," Tony whined exaggeratedly. "Taiwan is on the whole other side of the planet!"

Clint huffed a small laugh, like he was trying hard not to, and Tony smirked. Clearly, he'd gotten the reaction he'd been looking for, both from Steve and Clint. He leaned over towards Clint and stage-whispered, "Gotta get my fun in somewhere, don't I? Cap's way too much fun to play with." Then, standing, and with a jaunty wave to Bruce and Clint, he said, "Catch you kids later," and sauntered out of the room.

Steve looked between Natasha, Thor, and Bruce with an expression of long suffering. Then he addressed Thor and Natasha, "Meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes?"

"Of course," Thor agreed amicably, abandoning his pizza. He bade the others farewell and followed after Tony. After Natasha's affirmative nod, Steve headed that way, too.

Natasha sauntered over to the couch where Clint was apparently enthralled in listening to the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Or he was just sulking and refusing to acknowledge her presence.

Either/or, really. But she thought she knew which one it was.

"Hey," she said, and Clint inclined his head towards her very slightly, crossing his arms more tightly over his chest. Okay, so he was definitely sulking. "I was thinking, I'll call you before we land to—"

"To what?" he cut her off. "Make sure I didn't walk into a wall while you were gone? Fall down an elevator shaft? Christ, Nat, I'll be fine!"

Across the room, Bruce raised an eyebrow and looked, momentarily, like he'd rather be just about anywhere else. Natasha rolled her eyes, resisting the urge to slap Clint upside the head. This shit was getting old, as understandable as it was. Hell, getting out of the building to take care of some damn terrorists might be a nice break. Instead of giving voice to that thought, though, she ground out, "Sure you will. But that's not what I was going to say."

He turned his head to face her fully, but said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed, "I just keep fucking this up, don't I?"

Natasha was inclined somewhat to agree, but then she sighed too. "No. You don't." There was a lot she wanted to say—about how he was a part of a team, now, and even though he was determined to do everything alone, he didn't have to. Maybe even couldn't. But that undoubtedly fell under 'pep talk,' and she'd promised (threatened) that she'd do that later. In lieu of that, she offered, "I was going to say that I'd call you before we landed to see if you have anything you want to add to our plan."

This was, of course, part of her diabolical scheme to help Clint get his head of out of his ass.

Clint looked surprised, like he couldn't fathom _why _anyone would think he had anything to offer if he wasn't actively participating in the mission. Natasha rolled her eyes. It was time to smack that stupid idea down. "You've been to Taiwan before, you've worked ops like this before, you know what the team is capable of, and I'd like your input before we blast our way in and start taking people out right and left with lightning and repulsor beams."

Warily, Clint said, "Don't you think it'd be overstepping? I mean, it's not my mission—"

"You're part of the team. They're all your missions, dumbass. I'll call you." Natasha left him no room to argue. She figured she'd go over this idea with Steve during the plane ride, but she couldn't imagine him being opposed to it. Getting Clint's head of out his ass could be a group project, like so many of the things they did.

"Fine," Clint muttered, apparently unwilling to argue with the finality in her tone. "Yeah, sure. I'll be here." And then he smirked, clearly deflecting. "I mean it's not like me and Banner are going to go out on a hot date or something. Well...you never know."

And there was the Clint that Natasha knew and loved. Ignoring Bruce's blushing and sputtering, Natasha lightly punched Clint's shoulder and admonished him, "Be nice to him. He's a scientist, you know how awkward they are." Then, more seriously she added, "Shouldn't be gone more than two days, unless everything gets sent to hell."

"Yeah, well, you're bringing Stark into a hostage situation; I'd say that seems pretty damn likely."

Natasha had to concede the point. "I guess I'll just hope." She turned and looked at Bruce. "Don't let him razz you too much, doc. You can always threaten him with Harry Potter."

Bruce smiled. "Noted."

"Okay." Realizing she was stalling (and that it was cutting into her prep time) Natasha brusquely instructed the two men, "Play nice," before slipping from the room.

She hoped they would.

* * *

In her absence, Clint and Bruce sat in silence for about twenty seconds before Bruce offered, "Do you want more food? Thor only ate one of his pizzas, and it'd be a pity to let all this...bacon and...sausage and...meat to go to waste."

Well, that sounded like Clint's kind of pizza. Not that there were many types of pizza that _weren't _Clint's kind of pizza (although some of the stuff he'd had in France had been...questionable). So he answered, "Sure. If, uh, you don't mind."

A moment later, Bruce pressed a plate into his hand. "Brought you a Coke, too," he said, with a clunk that was probably him setting the can on the coffee table. "Need anything else?"

Having people wait on him hand and foot was, Clint thought, completely mortifying, but Bruce did it in such an unassuming way that he could _almost _forgo the humiliation of it.

Almost.

"No, I'm good." Clint paused. It sounded like the TV channel was starting over with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. "Actually...if you could put it on any other channel, that'd be _great._"

This was, it turned out, not something you say to someone who finds things like nuclear physics to be immensely entertaining. Although, in deference to Clint, Bruce avoided the documentary that was his first choice and settled for the Science Channel. It was showing Firefly.

The pair continued on with the dinner that had been interrupted, Clint trying very hard not to resent being left behind (because what the fuck good would he have been anyway?) and trying to get used to the idea that _this _was very likely going to be his life for the next year.

It had been _three days_, and he missed missions already.

About five minutes into the meal, Clint felt his cat land on the couch next to him. He set his pizza down on the coffee table in front of him and reached a hand out to scratch the cat's ears. "Surprised you're still around," he muttered. "Figured I'd've given you PTSD or something from being stepped on so many times."

From the armchair he'd settled into, Bruce snorted. "Sounds like it's been pretty rough for him."

"You have no idea," Clint confided. It was _way_ easier to talk about how this was affecting the fucking cat than about how it was affecting him. "I don't know if he was underfoot this much before and I could just _see_ him, or if he's recently got some sort of dumbass cat death wish, but he's just always _right there_."

Apparently sensing Clint was being disparaging, the cat abandoned him and vacated the couch. Clint assumed he was heading over to suck up to Bruce. After all, Bruce was terrible about spoiling the damn thing absolutely rotten, could not, apparently, say no to the small animal.

"He was probably underfoot before," Bruce said. "Probably, he's confused—he can't figure out what's wrong with you all of a sudden."

Clint had to laugh at that, because, well, wasn't that the question of the hour? "Yeah, him and me both."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked, careful, neutral.

Clint got the impression that Bruce hadn't been aiming for this conversation, but now that he'd stumbled into it, he was going to go with it. Clint didn't know how he felt about that, but he _was _the one who'd broached the topic. He started, "It's just, um..." but then he trailed off. Was this _really _somewhere he wanted to go? But then he decided 'fuck it.' Bruce was, hands down, the easiest person in the Tower to talk to, something Clint had discovered the first night he'd had his cat, when he'd come home beaten to a pulp and Bruce had patched him up. The scientist was just so damn easygoing and non-judgmental that people just tended to spill their guts to him. Clint had noticed all of the others doing the same thing, so he knew it wasn't just him.

Anyway, even if he _did _sound like a fucking moron, Bruce would never say as much. And, fuck it, he'd probably have _some_ kind of insight. Genius and all, had to be good for _something_. Well, something other than wrangling Tony Stark and building God-knows-what in his lab.

"I've been a giant asshole today," Clint admitted quietly, conspiratorially, like he was revealing something Bruce _hadn't _already noticed on his own.

But Bruce, like Clint had expected he would, took Clint's words in stride. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. I mean, it's gotta be hard—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Clint interrupted. He tentatively reached for his Coke and, when he found it, took a sip. "Nat's about ready to kick my ass, and yeah, that's more or less normal, but she's usually not so, um, _obvious _about it. I'm driving her nuts, but I can't help it. I just..." he shrugged.

Bruce made a thoughtful noise. "I think..." He stopped, then tried again, "Natasha said that Fury wanted to offer you a reassignment until you're cleared for fieldwork again, right?"

Clint nodded, taking another small sip of Coke.

"Well, what did you think of that?"

That was easy. "It's a nice gesture, but..."

"But you don't think you can do anything else. Not really."

Surprised, Clint cocked his head to one side. "How did you—"

"It's not exactly a huge leap, is it? Three days ago, after you'd woken up, you told me that the only thing you could do was shoot. And now, everyone's telling you that's not true, but you don't agree. Why not?"

_This_, of course, was the hazard of talking to Bruce. Great listener, but too damn smart for his own good. Asked too many questions. Clint's first reaction was a flash of irritation, but that wasn't fair (and he was trying to be less of an asshole) so instead he said, "Um..."

_Why _don't _you agree?_

That was a very good question. The obvious answer was that he _really_ _couldn't _do anything else, but if no one else seemed to think that was an issue—and not just anyone, but some of the smartest people he knew—then clearly it wasn't an issue. And beyond that obvious answer, he had nothing. So he admitted, "I don't know."

"I think you do," Bruce stated. "I said it three days ago, I'll say it now. You're more than a sniper." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "It's interesting, isn't it? Snipers act alone, for the most part. I mean, sure, you've got a handler, and you're usually part of a team, but when it comes down to it, you do your own thing. You take care of yourself." Clint got the feeling Bruce was staring straight at him when he finished, "And now you can't."

He was right. Of course he was fucking right. IQ that high, he was _always _right (decisions about messing with gamma radiation notwithstanding). But it went further back than that. Back to the circus. Back to being a pathetic little orphan, abandoned by his family, betrayed by his brother, left alone to fend for himself.

And, like Bruce had said, now he couldn't do that.

When Clint had needed to support himself, to save himself, he'd done the only thing he could. The only thing he knew how. And that was shooting.

For the first time in his life, he _couldn't shoot_. And somewhere in his brain, 'I can't shoot' was getting converted into 'I can't do _anything_.'

Added to the fact that, right now, he _needed_ other people in a way that he hadn't in _decades_, well, was it really any wonder that he was a little fucked in the head?

It made _sense_, in a 'what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-me' kind of way. It made total, perfect sense.

Clint could feel that his mouth was hanging open, so he reached for his pizza to give himself something to do while he processed the colossal revelation that had just smacked him in the face. He picked up the slice he'd set on the table in front of him and raised it to take a bite.

Bruce stopped him, though, with, "I, um, wouldn't do that."

The pizza still in the air, Clint asked, "Why not?"

"Oh. It's just...your cat's been licking that pretty much since you set it down."

Only slightly revolted (because, honestly, as a pet owner Clint was getting used to this sort of thing), he set the pizza back down and reached for the other slice on the plate. "Is this one safe?" He wondered why Bruce hadn't deemed it necessary to _stop _the fucking cat from defiling his pizza, but then remembered that Bruce tended to be easily and completely manipulated by the cat's charms.

"I think so..." Bruce answered, hesitant, "But do you really want to risk it?"

Clint shrugged and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. Then, for good measure (because all of the fucking talking he'd been doing lately had been interfering with his eating), he snarfed the rest of the piece. After he swallowed, he said, "You're right."

"I am?" Bruce sounded surprised, and quickly amended, "I mean, yeah. Of course I am. Wait. Right about what, exactly?"

"This whole thing," Clint waved his arm vaguely, "Is completely new to me, and I have _no fucking idea _what I'm doing. But it feels like I'm doing it wrong. I've only ever made a living by shooting shit, and I don't know how to depend on other people. And now I've lost one and had to learn the other, and it feels like my whole life is over."

It was _way_ more than he'd intended to say, and completely lacking in anything irreverent or snarky. It left him feeling awkward, so he deflected, "'Course it's not, though. Fury assures me I'm next in line for director of SHIELD. Apparently they hire on a can't-fucking-see basis. Which actually explains a _lot_."

Bruce chuckled. "Hey, you know, whatever works." Then, more seriously, he said, "And you know, we're not such a bad bunch of people. I mean, we're all pretty screwed up, and some of us aren't strictly _human_, but you can depend on us. We've all, um, 'got your back.'"

Clint had to laugh at how awkward Bruce sounded trying to give The Pep Talk. "Got it, doc. Now spare me the rest of it. I can't take three of these chats in a day, I really can't." Suddenly, he yawned. "And apparently I can't take being awake for more than an hour or two at a time, either."

"That's understandable," Bruce said. "Head trauma and all. It's what, a sixteen hour flight where they're going, yeah?"

Clint did the math. "Yeah, sounds about right. Well, you can probably shave a couple of hours off, those SHIELD planes can move."

"Okay, so fourteen hours. Get some sleep. Hell, get a lot of sleep."

Instead of pointing out that it was only 9:00, and that he'd recently had a nap that spanned several hours, Clint just nodded. He didn't want to overdo it, didn't want to risk his recovery. And sleep sounded fantastic after the tumultuous day he'd been having.

"All right, let's go, then." Clint stood, and Bruce steadied him with a hand under his elbow. They headed back towards the elevator.

"What about the pizza?" Clint asked, when they were waiting for the elevator to get to their floor.

"Huh? Oh, I'll clean it up in a bit. I'm kind of hoping to get your cat to lick Tony's leftovers in the interim. He played a prank on me the other day—itching powder, of all things, that's not even _creative_—and, uh, cat saliva seems like an adequate response."

Clint hadn't stopped chuckling by the time Bruce deposited him outside his apartment door.

* * *

When he woke up the next morning, he felt...better.

His head hurt less, for one, and that was a nice change. For three days, he'd woken up absolutely desperate for his pain meds. Today, he just wanted them a lot. Definitely an improvement.

But, more importantly, apparently his conversation with Bruce the previous night had sunken in overnight, and the crushing dread and anxiety he'd been dealing with since he'd woken up and realized he couldn't see was just...gone. Well, maybe not gone, but definitely diminished. He actually felt...capable.

That was fantastic on its own. But there was one more thing that made the morning all the more bright and cheerful.

Clint could _see_.

Okay, maybe not a lot. Really, not a whole lot more than he'd been able to see before. Now, instead of black and grey shadows, he was seeing slightly _less_ black and grey shadows. There were discernible shapes in the darkness. It wasn't much, but it was definitely _better_.

It was certainly more than pessimistic, all-I-can-do-is-shoot Clint had ever expected.

_I might actually get better_. _I might actually _see _again_.

And so, feeling much, much more cheerful than he had in days, Clint asked, "JARVIS, what time is it?"

"It is 10:04 AM, sir."

Sleeping for thirteen hours had probably helped his mood, too.

With a groan, Clint rolled out of bed. He carefully made his way over to his dresser, where he knew his pain meds were. He stared as hard as he could and, yup, he could barely make out the edges of the bottle. Grinning, he picked it up, shook out two pills, popped them in his mouth, and chased them down with the bottled water he kept next to them.

That done, he made his way to the bathroom.

Getting ready for the day was a lot easier than it had been the previous couple of days, but it still took forty-five minutes before he was presentable (at least, he assumed he was—still couldn't make out enough detail to tell). He was just putting his shoes on (with ample help from his cat, batting at the ends of the dangling laces) when his cell phone started ringing.

Remembering that Nat had said she was going to call, Clint felt his way over to where his phone was plugged in. He disconnected the charger and answered it, "Hello?"

Natasha sounded very far away (which, of course, she was) when she answered, "Hey, dumbass, how's it going?"

Only she could greet him with 'hey dumbass' and sound affectionate.

"Good," he answered. Then, buoyantly, "I think my vision's coming back!"

"That's good," Natasha said, sounding tired. "I've been listening to Tony complain for fourteen hours about how uncomfortable traveling in his damn suit is," in the background, Clint could hear Tony saying something snarky, but he couldn't make it out, "and that got old about thirteen and a half hours ago. I'm kind of hoping he gets separated from the rest of us during the mission and we can leave him in Taiwan."

This time, Clint could make out Tony's indignant, "Hey!"

"Anyway," she went on, talking over whatever snotty tirade Tony was spouting off, "We're about twenty minutes out, and I wanted to go over our plan. Mind if I put you on speaker?"

"Is, uh, everyone else okay with that?" He hadn't really planned on addressing _everyone_. Especially since he knew this was Natasha's contrived way to make him feel like he was a part of the team regardless of whether he could shoot shit or not. It was completely ridiculous. At the same time, though, he _had _done a lot of stuff like this before, and because he tended to look at things differently than Natasha or any of the others ('I see better from a distance,' he said, and it was true) he knew he might actually catch something someone had missed.

Breezily, Natasha answered, "Yeah, why wouldn't they be? Look, we want this to go as fast as possible, with as few fuck ups as possible, so just listen to the damn plan."

And again, she was hitting him with the inarguable finality. So he agreed, "Fine." It wasn't like there was anything that could go horrifically wrong with this...probably why Natasha was doing it. Risk-free positive reinforcement.

She was _devious_.

Natasha put him on speakerphone, and Steve quickly went over his plan, clarifying points whenever Clint asked. When he was done, Clint mused over what he'd said for a moment, then he began, "Well, first of all, you want to keep Tony away from..."

For another ten minutes, they tweaked the plan. Even Tony behaved, apparently thrilled with the idea of getting this over with as fast as possible.

"Okay," Natasha said, off speakerphone, when they'd hammered everything out, "Thanks. We're going to start descending soon. I'll let you know when we're coming home."

Clint nodded, then remembering that she couldn't see him, answered, "Sounds good. I'll be here."

"Dating Banner, I know." It sounded like Natasha was smiling. "Later, Barton."

She ended the call, interrupting the chorus of exclamations in the background that had greeted her remark.

Bemused, and feeling pretty pleased about how Natasha's contrived plan had worked out (even if he knew she was manipulating the shit out of him) Clint stood in the middle of his bedroom for a minute, before sitting back down on his bed to finish tying his shoes. That accomplished, he asked JARVIS, "Is Bruce around this morning?" He wanted to report the vision changes.

"Dr. Banner is in his laboratory," JARVIS answered. "Shall I send him to your location?"

Momentarily, Clint considered trying to find Bruce himself, but decided pretty quickly that could end badly. Sightlessness and science was not a good combination. He answered, "Yeah, please. No hurry, though."

'No hurry' or not, Bruce was knocking on Clint's door five minutes later. Clint let him in, greeting him with, "Hey. Everyone might think we're dating; thought I'd let you know."

Stepping into Clint's apartment, Bruce replied mildly, "Ah. Is that all, or...?"

"Huh? Oh, no. I think my vision's getting better."

That, of course, inspired Bruce to drag Clint down to his lab for a battery of vision tests, at the conclusion of which Bruce declared, "You're right. There's definite improvement in your tracking. Peripheral vision's still pretty, uh..."

"Fucked up," Clint supplied.

"Yeah, that," Bruce conceded, "But from what I read, that's probably going to take the longest to return."

"How long?"

"Still can't say," Bruce answered. "It's a really individual process, depends on the extent of the injury and so on. But from what I'm seeing here, I'd say a couple of weeks."

And Clint's morning was going so well, things were looking so much better, that hearing that didn't even faze him. "Sounds good."

Natasha called around 2:30 to tell him that they were heading home. "Plan went off without a hitch. And you were right about Tony's positioning. You're a lifesaver. Although I'm going to be regretting saying that if he doesn't shut his damn mouth on the way back."

It was good to hear.

Later that evening, Clint got a phone call from Fury.

It was, more or less, a jubilant 'I told you so' type of phone call. Fury had heard about how Natasha had roped him into the mission planning process, and wanted to point out (although in Clint's opinion, it was really more like...gloating) that he'd been right about Clint's ability to contribute to the team in ways other than 'killing shit.'

"I mean," Fury said, "You've been doing it for months, whether you were aware of it or not. Romanoff just took advantage of the situation at hand to pull your head out of your ass. Knew there was a reason I liked her."

Clint sighed. "Yes, sir. I _get _it. I'm not completely useless—"

Fury interrupted, "Damn right. Wouldn't have stuck you with that group of weirdos if they just needed a sniper, Barton. I've got snipers. But them? Those freaks needed something else."

"Sir, I'm one of 'those freaks,'" Clint pointed out diplomatically.

"Yeah, I know." Clint got the impression that Fury was smirking. "Got word from Banner today that your vision's coming back. Says you could be back to normal in a month or so."

"Something like that," Clint agreed easily.

"But you're still out of the field for the next six months, at least."

"I know that, sir." The reminder didn't rankle. Amazing what a little perspective could do.

If Fury noticed his newfound equanimity, he knew better than to comment on it. "Okay. Well, the team's en route. Should be back tomorrow morning. In the meantime, think more about what we talked about. Six months is a long time to be off duty, full year's worse. I'm not gonna let you waste away 'til medical clears you for fieldwork."

"Yes, sir."

"Good." Fury ended the call.

Clint made his way to his couch and stretched out along its length, kicking his shoes off into the middle of the floor and propping his feet up.

It was going to be quite a while before he was cleared for _any_ kind of work. But between his chat with Banner, and Natasha's mission to get his head out of his ass, well, things definitely looked different than they had even a day ago. Now that he knew _why_ he was reacting like he was, he knew he could stop. Because he _knew _he could trust the rest of the team. His friends. Needing people wasn't the end of the damn world, and they'd been proving for months that they were, like Bruce said, dependable. They were all screwed up, weirdos, even, but they were his friends.

And even though, for the moment, Clint couldn't fill one niche on the team, he'd damn well find another one. Nat had made it pretty damn clear that she was going to force him to see things her way—see all the different things he could do—and he was already coming around. When she got back from her mission (and had gotten some sleep—he didn't want to talk to her 'til she had—talk about a _bad idea_), he knew they were going to hash this stuff out together. Probably, the others were going to get pulled into it, too,

Which was fine.

As he started to doze off (he wondered if there was ever going to come a day where he didn't sleep through 3/4 of it), Clint felt his cat jump onto his chest. He opened his eyes and could, just barely, make out the outline of the animal perched on top of him. He ran one hand down the cat's back from ears to tail. Mumbling, he mused, "You know, Cat, sometimes you think you've got all this shit in your life figured out, right, and then you're just _wrong_. Kinda sucks to admit it, but you are. And sometimes it takes something literally blowing up in your face to get it."

The cat just purred contentedly—he, like all felines, was certainly _never_ wrong about _anything_.

**End**

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**Thanks for reading!**

**Writing this much fluff and optimism was taxing, and I'm pretty glad it's over. **

******Reviews are always appreciated. And by 'appreciated,' I mean lovingly and endlessly cherished.**


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